The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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An abnormally long fall has allowed the Alaska mining industry to extend seasonal work well into mid-October, creating a lot of new information about project work conducted around the state. Exploration efforts, in particular, benefitted from this additional field time. Based on information available to date, 2019 exploration expenditures are expected to be in the $135-140 million range, well ahead of the $120-125 million exploration spending tracked for 2018. In addition,...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska: The 8 millionth ounce of gold poured at Fort Knox on Oct. 9 is a milestone that seems to mark a new era for this iconic Interior Alaska mine that has been a flagship operation for Kinross Gold Corp. over the past 23 years. "The operation here at Fort Knox is our center for excellence, it has been for a long time," said Mike Sylvestre, Kinross Gold's senior vice president of operations in the Americas. Due to this excellence, Fort Knox serves as a university...
The World Gold Council Sept. 12 launched its Responsible Gold Mining Principles, which lays out a framework that provides investors and downstream gold supply chain customers with clear expectations as to what constitutes responsible gold mining. "It is our aim that the Responsible Gold Mining Principles reinforce trust in gold and the gold mining industry. Consumers, investors and the downstream gold supply chain will be able to know, with confidence, that their gold has...
Nova Minerals Ltd. Sept. 11 reported that it has outlined 2.5 million ounces of gold in a maiden inferred resource estimate for the Oxide Korbel deposit on the company's Estelle project in Alaska. Previously known as Oxide Ridge, the Oxide Korbel is located at the northern end of the roughly 18-mile-long Estelle property. The Oxide Korbel discovery hole, drilled by Millrock Resources Inc. in 2011, cut 450.7 meters averaging 0.38 grams per metric ton gold in an area Nova now...
Nova Minerals Ltd. Sept. 2 said results from this year's drill program at its Estelle gold project in Alaska has cut higher grade, near-surface mineralization within a bulk tonnage gold deposit at Oxide Korbel. Oxide Korbel is a prospect area that roughly covers an area previously referred to as Oxide Ridge toward the north end of the roughly 18-mile-long Estelle property. SE11-01, the Oxide Ridge discovery hole drilled by Millrock Resources Inc. in 2011, cut 450.7 meters...
As the rest of the country suffers through the Dog Days of summer, Alaska is approaching the end of a topsy-turvy summer season that saw unseasonably hot, dry weather in some parts of the state during some parts of the summer, while other parts of the state have seen record rainfall and unseasonably early snowfall. Gold prices have skyrocketed over the $1,500 per ounce mark and silver prices have moved strongly up, now trading at a one-year high. However, copper and zinc are a...
Nova Minerals Ltd. Aug. 12 reported that the preliminary resource drill program at its Estelle gold project in Alaska has been completed on time and under budget. As a result of the acceleration of its induced polarization (IP) geophysical survey and drill campaign this year, Nova said it has made significant headway toward reporting an initial Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant for Oxide Korbel, a new occurrence in the Oxide area at the north end of the...
Hecla Mining Company sees higher grades at its Greens Creek Mine in Southeast Alaska as a catalyst for higher companywide silver production this year. "Silver production at Greens Creek continued to be strong due to higher grades, so we are increasing our estimates for silver production for the year," said Hecla Mining CEO Phillips Baker, Jr. Through the first half of 2019, the Greens Creek Mine has produced 4.6 million ounces of silver, which accounts for roughly 77 percent...
Kinross Gold Corp. July 31 reported that the Fort Knox Mine in Interior Alaska produced 55,440 ounces of gold during the second quarter of 2019. This is a 47 percent increase over first quarter gold production but down 22 percent from the second quarter of 2018. The higher production, when compared to the first quarter, helped push down the costs to produce an ounce of gold at this open-pit operation about 25 miles north of Fairbanks. The cost for each ounce of gold sold...
Thanks to improving gold output and lower costs at its Pogo gold mine in Alaska, Northern Star Resources Ltd. sold 232,042 ounces of gold during the final quarter of its fiscal year 2019, a record for the Australian gold miner. During the three months ending June 30, Northern Star sold 48,009 oz of gold produced at Pogo, which is a 33 percent increase over the previous quarter. The Perth-based miner expects gold output at Pogo to continue its upward trend. "Pogo is on track...
Nova Minerals Ltd. June 21 announced the start of drilling at the Oxide gold prospect on the Estelle project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. The Australia-based explorer plans to complete 5,000 meters of drilling in two phases. The second phase will be decided by the 2,500-meter phase-1 results. "It's great to be back drilling at the district-scale Estelle gold project," said Nova Minerals Managing Director Avi Kimelman. "A great deal of work has gone into...
In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot! After seasonally slower news from Alaska's mining industry in March and April, the dam has broken with over two dozen Alaska mining project news releases issued in the last month. Including those projects moving forward that have not released their 2019 plans, Alaska has become a very busy place under the sun. All of our major metal mines reported strong performances in the first quarter, several of Alaska's most...
Tectonic Metals Inc. plans to leverage Alaska's underexplored gold potential to create "the number one mineral exploration company in the world." While this is a lofty goal, Tectonic Metals is led by an executive team that is renowned for the mineral exploration, mining and business skills required to achieve the company's vision. Tony Reda, former vice president of corporate development of Kaminak Gold Corp., is the president and CEO of Tectonic Metals. He is joined by Eira T...
Kinross Gold Corp. May 7 reported that the Fort Knox Mine in Interior Alaska produced 37,613 ounces of gold during the first three months of 2019, less than half the 79,928 oz of gold produced during the same period last year. The lower production resulted in a significant rise in costs at this open-pit operation about 25 miles north of Fairbanks. The cost for each ounce of gold sold during the first quarter was US$1,023, compared to US$530/oz during the first three months of...
With 12.5 million acres of land spanning Alaska's Interior, Doyon Ltd. is the largest private landholder in the state and one of the largest in the nation. For mining and mineral exploration companies, the rich mineral potential of these lands may be more impressive than the sheer size of the estate. This is because the Doyon region is a nearly Texas-sized swath of Interior Alaska that is renowned for its gold and a host of other metals, providing the regional corporation,...
Kinross Gold Corp. April 16 announced it is streamlining its senior leadership team by eliminating two senior vice presidents, including Lauren Roberts, who was general manager at Fort Knox before assuming the role of senior vice president and chief operating officer for the global gold mining company. "During his long and successful career at Kinross, Lauren was a relentless champion of safety and delivered many accomplishments, including achieving our annual production and...
Alaska Miners Association April 10 released "The economic benefits of Alaska's mining industry," a report put together by the McDowell Group that details roughly $1.26 billion in direct economic benefits from Alaska's mining sector during 2018. Healthy paychecks being brought home to more than 60 communities across Alaska is mining's biggest single economic contributor to the state. Alaska's mines, development and mineral exploration projects paid roughly $459 million to some...
As is usually the case this time of year, the mining industry is awash in backward-looking statements designed to allow for more accurate forward-looking statements. Prime among them is one of my favorites, S&P Global's annual "World Exploration Trends 2019", a summary of what happened industry-wide in 2018 and what it may portend for the mining industry in 2019. The study predicts that global exploration budgets will increase again in 2019, although by a smaller amount, with...
International Tower Hill Mines Ltd. March 15 said it is continuing metallurgical work to define and refine the project flowsheet for its 11.5-million-ounce Livengood gold project located along a paved highway about 70 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. This work is part of a US$3.7 million program approved by Tower Hill's board and will build upon the metallurgical studies undertaken in 2018 to continue to define and refine the project flowsheet. Last year's program involved...
Great American Minerals Exploration Inc. is investing roughly US$10 million on exploration this year at its 55,465-acre SAM gold project about 45 miles west of the Pogo Mine. Having staked its first claims in at the SAM project area in 1999, GAME, as the privately held exploration company is commonly known, is no stranger to this emerging gold-rich stretch of the Tintina Gold Belt between the Pogo and Fort Knox mines. GAME's previous land position, however, covered only a...
Since the stampedes of prospectors trekked North in the latter half of the 19th Century, the lure of Alaska's rich gold lodes has drawn dreamers and miners North. Today, four hardrock mines and hundreds of family-run placer operations across the Last Frontier churn out roughly 1 million ounces of this alluring precious metal each year – and the largest stores of aurum discovered here have yet to be realized. Despite being a relatively rare metal that has served as a c...
Antimony is a poor conductor of heat, an attribute that lends itself to this semi-metal's most common use, as an ingredient to make clothing, mattresses and other products flame resistant. While making work clothes and household items safer and less likely to catch fire is a relatively new use for antimony, humans have been using antimony for other purposes for more than 5,000 years. "For example, the ancient Egyptians and early Hindus used stibnite, which is the major ore...
Extremely rare, yet a vital ingredient to emerging solar panel technologies, tellurium is the epitome of what it means to be a critical metalloid, an element that possesses the properties of both a metal and non-metal. "Most rocks contain an average of about 3 parts per billion tellurium, making it rarer than the rare earth elements and eight times less abundant than gold," the United States Geological Survey wrote in a 2015 report on this critical metalloid. "Grains of...
Extremely hard and with the highest melting point of all the elements on the periodic table, tungsten is vital to a broad spectrum of commercial and military applications, yet there are no mines in the United States producing this durable metal. Nearly 60 percent of the tungsten consumed in the U.S. during 2018 was used to make the cemented tungsten-carbide, a compound of roughly equal parts tungsten and carbon. Roughly twice as strong as steel, tungsten carbide is often...
Alaska, like Canada to the east and Russia to the west, is well known for its elephantine mineral deposits. Recognition of those deposits surfaces regularly. Sometimes they are characterized by incredible production results, as in the case of Red Dog, Pogo and Fort Knox. Sometimes they are abandoned due to social factors to lie in wait for another day, as is the case with Brady Glacier, Misty Fiords and Chuitna. All too often, those who identify a valuable mineral deposit are...
